Alter Egos
by Gennerator
Summary: Yugi and Tea finally decide to go out on a date. A normal date, because they were just normal teenagers, obviously. Unfortunately they end up getting held hostage. Mmm, steamy. Yami. Tea. Yugi.


This was written out of necessity. I haven't watched Yugioh for years, and even when I did it was for the sexy Yugi-Yami-Tea interaction. Can we say somewhat threesome? Card games? Blah. I'll do without.

Yeah, I was into this stuff back when I was eight. That should tell you what kind of a person I am.

Anyways, I was watching the Yugioh Abridged series. And I got excited. And wrote this. I'm using the English names because that's what I grew up with...along with censorship and being devoid of good voice acting to balance out the crazy hair. And it's more or less meaningless fluff. There is no hidden message or intricate plot or meaningful conversation. It's just here to be cute. Which I. Don't. Do. Well. But homigawd it was fun.

Actually the beginning is quite well thought out. I lost my focus halfway through. Then I died.

Contains naughty language, peeps. You all know Yami would have been a total badass if the show wasn't for ten year olds. At least, he was in the original. My God, he set people on fire. Actually, I tried to keep everything light throughout, but then the gun scene came and it was just stupid...you can't write a light gun scene, it doesn't work. I TRIED. So, in the end, this is probably one of the darkest Yugioh fics you'll ever read. But then it gets fluffy. Ahhhh, my inability.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything...don't particularly want to, for that matter.

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One of the amazing things about Yugi was his intensity. Most of the time he was all gentle eyes and mild words and well-that's-okay-with-me-if-it's-okay-with-you. But stick him in a card game and he's suddenly the terminator. Of course, half the time that intensity was Yami, psychotically attractive pharaoh that he was, but the other times it was all Yugi, gone _I'll beat the hell out of you _on whoever's unfortunate ass.

And Tea marveled at this side of him, because she hadn't even known it existed until an effeminate man went millennium happy and started snatching everybody's souls. It hadn't even manifested itself when she was almost forcibly turned into a child porn star.

Which stung a little, naturally.

Of course, that was probably because Yugi hadn't been fighting for five seconds when Yami clutched control of his body like a bat out of hell and decimated the gym teacher's mind. Which really said something about Yami; no matter how scary he was, he really liked her and Yugi a lot. Enough to go _fucking_ _haywire_ when they were smacked around a bit.

She wondered how she could nonverbally tell him she liked him too. Dash to the rescue when he was up shit creek? Hardly.

But Yugi had his own alter ego, completely separate from the surplus soul in his body. And Tea decided she wanted him to show it to her. Because she was stupid. And she was pretty sure she was kind of in love with him. Probably. Not involving Yami. Because she was probably in love with him to.

That was just the way her life went sometimes.

Oh, well. Repeatedly save the world from mega millionaires and crazy reincarnations, have a less-than-stable (or existent, for that matter) love life. Win some lose some.

And that was why she had chased Tristan and Joey off, cornering Yugi on the front steps after school. Because she was tired of her love life sucking. Secretly intense side or no, Yugi was still too shy to take matters into his own small, pale hands. So it was up to her to take them into her own smaller, slightly more tan ones.

Being a girl sucked sometimes. What was the point of being one of the fairer sex if she still had to do all the work?

"You want to go out with me?"

He didn't sound happy so much as just confused. Like, _well, okay, but _why? She reminded herself not to blame him at the same time she felt a twinge of embarrassment.

"Yes," she said, and then clarified. "With you."

"With me."

"Yes."

"Me?"

"You."

"Oh."

He gazed off, considering, eyes unfocused. Was he talking to Yami? She hated not knowing. Of course, he probably hated not knowing if she was really interested in him or if she was using him to get to Yami. She thought she had made herself exceedingly clear on that point, but...well, he was probably going to suspect no matter what she said. And that was her fault, no matter how hard she had tried to avoid it.

"Yugi." He started when she said his name, big violet eyes looking up at her. "I mean it."

He smiled, finally, and his whole face brightened. She sucked in a startled breath. "Okay."

She was suddenly struck by how _pretty_ he was. When Yami had control his entire everything changed, face becoming more angular, eyes sharpening...and gaining a foot or two, which she was _never_ going to understand, not ever. But when he was...just him, there was no other way to describe him. She resisted the urge to rub her thumbs under his striking eyes.

She really needed to learn how to articulate her feelings more clearly. He made it look easy.

Yami made it look like a damn riddle...

But she was done pondering the one-and-a-half men in her life. She had always been the kind of person to take action first and wonder why she did something later, anyway.

Not that she hadn't thought about this. For hours. Every night. Since she had found out there were two of them.

"You have really pretty eyes, you know," she said instead.

He blushed and dropped them immediately, laughing lightly. "Way to appeal to my masculine side, Tea."

She laughed too, because acting buddy-buddy was easier than trying to express how she felt about him. She could worry about that tomorrow.

They looped their arms together as they walked home, arguing about where they would go the next day. Yugi wanted to go to the park, she suggested they wander around the mall, and he typically relented without a second thought. She felt bad and started pressing for the park, he picked up on what she was doing immediately and stuck with the mall, and they argued some more. They eventually decided on coffee and a movie. And it only took them half an hour.

She hung around the game shop with him all afternoon and only headed home when her dad called asking where the hell she was. She declined his offer to walk her home. She went to bed feeling vaguely excited.

Taking matters into her own hands rocked.

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All things considered, she felt reasonably pretty.

Jeans weren't really her thing; she preferred shorts and skirts and covering up her legs made her feel restrained and uncomfortable. That was half the reason the girls at her school called her a tease (the other half being that she hung around four guys all the time), but she had stopped caring years ago. Except sometimes. But everyone felt like crap sometimes, so that was okay. And today was particularly chilly, so jeans it turned out being. She had considered wearing heeled boots but decided that would just be unfair. So she was wearing nice black sandals. Flat sandals. And a pretty dark green shirt.

Favorite apparel or no, she did feel unusually attractive. Maybe because her best friend of X years had agreed to go out with her? Oh, she was screwed up.

But happy. For screwed up reasons.

_Woe is me_, she thought, snorting.

"That's a nice look for you."

Yugi had stepped off a bus, wearing a leather jacket. He jammed his hands into his pockets and smiled at her.

"Really? I would have preferred something lighter, but..."

"Actually, I was talking about the way your face looked when you snorted. Nice and sophisticated."

She laughed. "You jerk."

There was a brief period of awkward silence, then he reached out and laced his fingers with hers. It was the most intimate way they had ever touched (aside from the multiple times she had cradled his body, wondering if he was dead), and it had her arm tingling all over. She wouldn't have been surprised if she had suddenly giggled and blushed. _Jeezum_.

Yugi looked good in leather, she noted, and this thought did have her blushing. He was starting to grow, too. A couple more inches and he would be as tall as her, not counting his crazily weird hair. He blinked up at her innocently and gently tugged her hand. "Let's go. I'm half afraid we're going to get mugged."

"Yeah, we wouldn't want that."

But it was getting dark, and therefore colder, and she shivered. Yugi started to offer her his jacket, seemed to realize she would refuse, and instead started leading her to a small café. She imagined what Yami would do in this situation (Come, Tea, the coffee awaits our presence), and almost started laughing.

They shuffled into line and ended up getting hot chocolate and some muffins._ So we're immature, sue us. _They found an empty recliner by a window and managed to fit (her being skinny and him being a midget). They settled in, trying to balance everything on their knees and against their stomachs, laughing whenever they dropped a muffin. The other customers, mostly frazzled looking students with laptops, were starting to give them dirty looks, so they quieted down.

She liked this, this easy, effortless affection. It wasn't like this with Yami, where she wanted him so bad it _hurt_, and it felt like she couldn't breathe when he looked at her. This was...nice. Fun. Relaxing.

Kind of warm and fuzzy.

And growth challenged or not, he looked really good in leather.

Hoo, there she went blushing again.

"We should probably get our tickets soon," Yugi said, blowing on his cocoa.

She popped a piece of muffin into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Probably."

"As in, very soon."

She looked pointedly out the window at the dark, frigid street. "Yup."

"Mmm."

She tipped her paper cup back and drained it, then grabbed Yugi's hand. "Come on, we'll run."

She shrieked when they burst into the night air, because if it was cold before it was _damn_ cold now, and Yugi laughed at her. Then they sprinted, cold air scratching welts into their skin, and Tea was hit again by how good it all felt. Yugi always made her feel like this...like maybe it didn't matter she was in love with two people and she would get enough money to go to America and even if she didn't that was still okay. He was like a drug. An adorably short, highly addictive drug.

Which made her a junkie.

_I think I just died a little inside_.

And because God didn't like people to be happy too long, they almost ploughed a grubby looking man in an overcoat into the sidewalk.

"Oh, geeze, we're so sorry!" Tea fluttered, dancing from foot to foot.

But he just gave them a completely blank look and trudged away, hands deep in his pockets. Yugi watched him go, frowning.

"He gives me kind of a creepy feeling..."

"I'm sure it's nothing."

Yugi stared after him for a while, then took her hand and started to walk. "I guess..."

They huddled together in the ticket line for what seemed like forever, then hurried into the toasty theater lobby.

"Should we get popcorn?" Yugi asked, briskly rubbing his arms.

"As opposed to not getting popcorn? Sounds risky."

He made a little _a-heming_ sound. "You're with the King of Games here, Tea."

"Oh, excuse me, I forgot for a moment." She made a swipe at his spiky hair, trying to flatten it. He made an indignant noise and jerked away, laughing.

Then there was a gunshot, and everything went more or less downhill from there.

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Yugi grabbed Tea instinctively and spent a blinding second trying to figure out if she'd been shot. But then she was pulling them both to the ground, hissing, "Get _down_." So he could safely assume she was all right.

Unless she was some kind of superhero, which he wouldn't put past her.

_Yugi. Switch_.

He briefly considered refusing, just to see if he could handle a life-threatening situation himself for once, but that would just be stupid. And he suspected Yami could overpower him if he really wanted to.

He closed his eyes and let go, shivering at the brief moment when their separate souls touched. When he opened his eyes he was safely pushed to the back of his own mind. Willingly giving someone control of your body was always a disorienting experience. He could still see, hear, and feel everything that happened to his body but it was...different? More vague? Or amplified, even, he didn't really know.

And there was always that nagging little knowledge that he wasn't in physical control. It didn't bother him so much as it just weirded him out.

Tea could feel the change, she always could for some reason, and she turned to stare at him. Yami pressed a finger to his lips and shook his head. "Just wait a few moments."

She nodded at him, looking scared but aware of what she was doing, and turned back around to watch the gunman. Yami immediately recognized him as the man they had bumped into earlier – bad news. He might recognize them too. Yami slowly inched his right arm from under his chest. "Put your head down," he whispered.

The movement attracted the man's attention, just like Yami had been trying to avoid, and he pointed the gun barrel at them.

"You. Get up here."

Shitdamnsonofabitch. Yami started to get to his feet, wondering how close he had to be to invade his mind, but the man shook his head at him. "Nuh-uh. You stay."

Yami's heart sank, and Tea pushed herself up instead. He resisted the inane urge to tell her to get the hell back down – who did she think she was, being so fucking shootable? Unfortunately that went way beyond the line that separated protectiveness from utter provocation, and really, how was he supposed to blame her? Damn you for being female? Sometimes he pissed himself off.

Sometimes he tried way too hard to distract himself.

Tea walked uncertainly, like she wasn't sure if it was more dangerous to try to run or to keep getting closer to the gun pointed at her face, but the man got impatient and roughly grabbed her, pulling her tightly against his chest and jamming the gun point against her neck. Bad, bad bad. Worse than it had been a few seconds ago. He should have moved then, _dammit_.

_Yami..._

_Not yet. He'll shoot her._

"Okay, just so everyone understands." His voice was shaky and he paused midway to clear his throat. He was sweating, a lot, and already looked freaked out, like Oh my _God _what was I thinking. Yami felt his lip curl back. Too late now, asshole. "Don't think I won't bluh...blow her, and everyone else's, brains out. Don't move." A pause. "Or I'll shoot you."

Oh, he was young. And nervous. And suicidal. He was going to kill everyone in here, Yami picked up on that immediately. If he had been after money he would have hit the ticket booth instead of strolling into the lobby. He was either incompetent, which, actually, was an accurate possibility, or he was planning on killing every person in this building. Including himself.

Including Tea. He would probably start with her. Yami's stomach tightened.

Tea must have realized this too, because she was suddenly looking a lot less scared and a lot more pissed. Yami felt like screaming at her. _Forget your damn sense of justice, let me deal with it! He doesn't give a shit about the value of a human life! _

That probably would have gotten him shot.

Apparently Tea was quite intent on getting herself shot, because she chose that moment to sink her glistening white teeth into the arm across her throat. She must have bitten _hard_, because the guy screamed and slammed the butt of the gun into her temple – she dropped like a rock. So did the gun, he had hit her so violently it was jarred out of his hand. Yami had started sprinting the second all of this started happening and was screaming at the top of his lungs, forgetting she was already cold on the floor. "Get down Tea, just _get down_!"

Everyone was screaming. Yami raised his hand.

The man crumpled halfway through picking his gun up, hitting the ground even faster than Tea had, clutching his head in agony. His mouth opened silently, contorting, body arching off the ground, writhing.

_Yami!_

He released his hold and the man slumped, eyes rolling back in his head. Yami nudged the gun away, towards a nearby bystander, with his foot. Tea was already back on her feet, staring at the body and swaying minutely. A dark bruise was already swelling along one side of her face. Yami stalked over to her and slung one of her arms over his shoulders, holding her up, then walked stiffly with her right out the doors. Screw the police, they were leaving.

They got all of four blocks away, listening to the police sirens gathering behind them, before her adrenaline suddenly left her in a wave and she slumped against him heavily. He caught her and, after some debate, stumbled with her into a small alley behind a grocery store. He pushed her against a brick wall, staring at her and holding her by the shoulders, before abruptly releasing her and backing away. She didn't fall, just looked at him. He rubbed his eyes.

"Why," he said finally, slowly, crossing his arms. "Did you do that?"

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Tea stared at him. "Do what?" She asked blankly.

He smiled faintly but somehow still managed to look furious. She dimly noted that Yami _was_ taller than her.

"Why did you feel the need to provoke someone holding a gun?" He clarified. Well, oh. That.

He didn't have to put it that way. He made it sound stupid. She had felt somewhat heroic when she was actually doing it.

"Well, he was going to shoot me anyway," she said defensively, because with him just standing there and staring at her appraisingly she really felt stripped down. His eyes faintly glowed in the darkness, a cheeky little reminder that he wasn't technically human. She swallowed. "Don't pretend like you didn't figure that out."

"I was going to at least wait until he wasn't_ pointing a gun _at you."

She didn't know what to say. She hadn't...what she did wasn't bad, was it? She had just saved a room full of people's lives...hadn't she? So why was he acting like this? He was obviously angry with her, and she didn't know how to respond to that. Come to think of it, he was more often angry with her than not...she had a habit of pissing him off. Her insides shrank with embarrassment, and she tilted her head so she wouldn't have to look at him. He...thought she was an idiot, didn't he? Or an annoyance.

_I'm stupid! God...dammit!_

"He was going to shoot you too," she mumbled, staring at the ground.

He didn't respond, and she wondered if maybe she just shouldn't have said anything. This night _sucked_. Everything sucked, God, she should have just figured that out sooner and not even tried. She just wanted to go home, where he couldn't see her...

"Tea."

She actually _flinched._ "Yeah?" She whispered.

His long, pale fingers (longer than Yugi's, she noticed) caught her chin, gently tilting her face upward so she had to look at him. He was regarding her with something akin to curiosity. She hoped he didn't notice her lip trembling. Of course, he probably would, because that was just how life worked most of the time.

"Do you really care so much about me you would risk your own life to save mine?"

She was going to start crying soon, she could tell. She stared up at him, huge blue eyes glistening, and bit her lip, hard. If there was any way to further humiliate herself tonight, this was it. She had told herself she could get over him. She believed it too, for the hour or so she had spent with Yugi.

But she would never get over him. That much was obvious when he was standing right in front of her. The tears spilled over.

"Yes," she whispered brokenly, face crumpling.

She tried to slide away from him, fully intending to haul her sorry ass home, but he caught her and pushed her roughly back against the wall, pressing himself flush against her. His hands rested on either side of her head, locking her in place. _Woah. Waitasecond_. His head hovered above hers for a second, intense gaze freezing her in place, then his mouth descended on hers, hot and firm.

Her eyes popped open as wide as physically possible, and before she could understand what either of them was doing she was pushing against him, trying desperately to get him to stop. For a second she wondered if he would just ignore her. But she knew he wouldn't.

He pulled back immediately but didn't release her, looking at her with heavy-lidded eyes.

"What's wrong?"

His voice was subtly laced with concern, and she saw his eyes rake over the side of her face that hurt when she touched it.

"You don't, er, get it." She was shaking her head desperately, trying to get away. His eyes narrowed and his elbows locked around her shoulders. She stared at him in shock and he raised an eyebrow. It took her a second to get her train of thought back. "I...Yugi, him too – "

His expression cleared and he barely smiled at her. "Is that all? I already knew that."

He started to kiss her again but she held up a hand in front of her face, warding him off. "_What?_"

He sighed and rested his forehead on hers, smiling wryly at her. One hand dropped to play with her hair. She wouldn't have been surprised if her face had exploded. "I told him this would happen, you know."

"I don't...what are you talking about?"

"We know. We've always known. It's fine." He paused. "Actually, Yugi never believed you cared about him as much as you did me, but I suppose he'll have to now..."

He started nuzzling her cheek, trying to get her to relax. Tea's mind was spinning. What the hell was he babbling about? They knew she couldn't choose between them and it was 'fine?' That didn't...things just didn't _work_ like that!

"You're still crying," he murmured gently, one finger brushing a tear off her cheek.

"I'm freaked out!" Her voice pitched way higher than she had meant it to. "I...um..." But whatever she had been about to say (she wasn't really sure if she felt like beating him...them senseless or expressing her undying devotion) was cut off in a strangled gasp. Yami was_ licking_ her, tenderly kissing the tears on her face, flicking his tongue out to erase any evidence that she had been crying in the first place.

Needless to say, she immediately lost her train of thought.

"It's all right," he said, almost purring. "We'll take care of you."

"I...um, thisss..." _Damn_ it was hard to think. "Just, uh, hold on a sec."

He obligingly stopped his ministrations and returned to toying with her hair and brushing his cheek against hers. "Yes?"

"You don't think this is...weird?"

Yami seemed to think for a moment, then he sighed. "I'm not good at this. Yugi is better at talking than me...he knows you better..."

She started to stop him, because shoving him aside to talk to someone else just seemed wrong somehow, but he swooped down and kissed her again, the distracting bastard. It was gentler this time, made even sweeter when he laced their fingers together and rested their hands on her chest. She sighed despite herself and felt herself melting in his embrace.

She could tell they switched when he started laughing into her mouth.

"I can't believe he started licking you..."

She groaned. "Oh, don't act like this is perfectly normal too..."

"We're two souls trapped in the same body, Tea...this is as normal as it gets."

She narrowed her eyes at him. Of course when he put it that way...

"I don't know what's so wrong with it," he went on unperturbedly. "We love you. You love us." He paused uncertainly. "You _do_ love us, don't you?"

"Yes," she said quickly, because it hurt to see him look so insecure, however briefly. "But I feel like...it would be like I had a harem," she said stubbornly.

"You made him blush."

"I made myself blush."

"Try looking at it this way," he suggested. "It would be impossible for us to have separate relationships..."

"If you tell me I'm convenient I'll kill you."

"It's what we _want_," he said, so sincerely that she blushed again. "Is it what you want?"

"I...of course it's what I want," she muttered, dropping her eyes.

"Then it's okay."

Then he kissed her, and it was so weirdly different from the way Yami had that she somehow managed to feel surprised. Yami had been confident, hot and unyielding, like he was trying to prove himself to her. Yugi went slower, made it last longer and gave her time to respond.

So her situation roughly chalked up to...what? There were three of them, deargodhowcrazywhatwouldhermotherthink. A five thousand year old pharaoh who had experienced and understood things she couldn't even begin to comprehend. Yugi, not yet out of highschool, just a boy who happened to utterly know her inside and out. Her, Tea. Dancer extraordinary, doer of foolish things. Them. Three. They were all in love, so simple as that.

It wasn't even remotely okay.

She didn't care anymore! Okay could go die in a ditch!

Yugi looked a little surprised when she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him as close as they could, but she knew he wasn't going to complain. His hands fisted in her hair, _so_ gently, and he broke away from her mouth to dot tiny kisses along her jaw.

"...should probably get home soon," he said, sounding so self-conscious she immediately realized he had no idea what the hell he was doing.

"That feels good," she sighed honestly, mostly for his benefit. He flushed adorably. "But yeah, we probably should."

They extracted themselves from each other, her wincing. "Brick walls are hard," she explained when she found him watching her. "I think it left imprints on my back."

He smiled sheepishly. "Yami was a little excited..."

They found a payphone and Tea called a taxi, acutely aware of the way his eyes followed her every movement. It was simultaneously unnerving and flattering.

She was dropped off first, and Yugi walked her to her door. He waited until she had her keys in the lock before pressing a chaste, indulgent kiss to her lips. When he finally pulled away he smiled softly.

"See you tomorrow," he promised.

Nothing was okay. They would deal with it.

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Nyyyyewww the cuteness.


End file.
